The Great Penny Hunt

On February 4, we celebrate(?) the last day of the Canadian penny! They are going out of circulation... sniff! Apparently Canadians are penny hoarders and every year the Canadian Mint needs to produce more of them... and it costs 1.6 cents to mint, process and handle a penny which is only worth 1 cent. Which means... the penny's days are finally over... almost. The Canadian Mint won't make any more, but we can still use them... but then stores and banks will turn them over to the Mint and slowly, the penny will disappear!

In honour of the penny, I went on a little hunt around the house to see how many I could find...

First I started with Mama's pewter mug where she always empties her pockets of coins. This should be a good place to start!

Oh yeah!! There are some copper coins in there!

I dumped them all out and then started sorting... 

 There we go... a nice pile of pennies... now where else could I look??

I went down and frisked Mama's partner and came away with three pennies from a portemonnaie and a little silver elephant.

Ooooh... nice elephant! And it's heavy...

Ta-dah!!! More coins!

Some pennies and a paperclip... hmmm... Why do people hoard paperclips??

There we go - that's my whole haul of pennies - pretty good for a little bear! And out of all those pennies... there are a few that were notable...

The oldest penny was 1953 (that was the one I found on the beach the other week). And the youngest penny was 2012... That is almost 60 years of penny life!

The oogiest penny was this one... I think I found it on a beach too... but it is only from 2000! Salt water and copper do not mix!

From 1953 to 2012, if you look on the backs, you can see how the Queen has aged too. Mama says she has some pennies squirreled away in storage which have the King on them! Not sure if that is King George V or VI.

And there were 3 American pennies too! They are the same size as Canadian ones and we pretty much use them interchangeably up here - especially when the exchange rate is similar. And nickels, dimes and quarters too! Not sure if Canadian coins are OK to use in America?

This penny was different because it didn't have a year on the front (it should be right above the "C" in Canada. I got all excited thinking I had a "misprint" worth thousands... but no...

If you look on the back, you'll see that it was done for 1952-2002 - probably the Queen's 50 year anniversary of being Queen.

Well - there you go... the Great Penny Hunt yielded exactly 82 pennies. But I am going to tuck a few into my pockets to keep - my lucky 1953 beach penny and the 2012 penny and the 50 year Queen anniversary one.

After February 4... will we still be able to say things like "A penny saved is a penny earned"... "A penny for your thoughts"... ????